


Work of Artistry

by Hrunting_License



Series: A Bending, Breaking Wheel [3]
Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Balan is an enterprising young monsterfucker, Bëor is still Balan here, Cousin Incest, Elf/Human Relationship(s), Humans Understand Some Things Better, Interspecies Sex, M/M, Nargothrond, Past Child Abuse, Past Rape/Non-con, Past/Mentioned Incest, Slutty Finrod, Threesome
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-11
Updated: 2021-01-11
Packaged: 2021-03-15 16:21:38
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,122
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28691625
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hrunting_License/pseuds/Hrunting_License
Summary: "I think you will like these Men, cousin. Perhaps as much as I do."
Relationships: Bëor the Old/Finrod Felagund | Findaráto, Bëor the Old/Maglor | Makalaurë, Bëor the Old/Maglor | Makalaurë/Finrod Felagund, Finrod Felagund | Findaráto/Maglor | Makalaurë
Series: A Bending, Breaking Wheel [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2103060
Comments: 5
Kudos: 46





	1. Keep My Thoughts and Thieve My Wisdom

“Come and visit, cousin. You will like these Men. Perhaps almost as much as I do.”

Finrod had been right. The Men were fascinating, not least because they knew a thousand thousand songs that he had never heard before, and (admittedly) because they hung on every word from his lips, as though he were...well, there were none mightier than he when it came to song, he admitted, but they looked at him as though he were so far above them, he thought it might be how the First Elves must have looked at Lord Oromë at Cuiviénen. Usually, they looked at Finrod that way.

And why not? His cousin was fair even by the measure of the Eldar, with golden locks bound up in a hundred tiny braids, looped and baubled, either by himself or one of his attendants.

Maglor swept his eyes down again. It would not do to be looking too hungrily at his cousin. He and Maedhros had gotten very good, these last centuries, at pretending they were not the sort of people who looked where they should not. True, for Maedhros that hardly included half-first-cousins, but Maglor had always been more...circumspect.

What he hadn’t anticipated, upon visiting Nargothrond to meet Finrod’s human friends again, was how _different_ his cousin acted around them. Finrod had always been kind, gentle, and firm with the rest of them, a shining contrast to stoic Turgon at every family gathering. On their many hunting trips in Eastern Beleriand, he had seemed much the same, but older, more secure in his own power, with a secret smile behind his laughing grey eyes. He was always composed, even when the wind whipped his braids wildly about, even when he was drawing his sword in battle or firing an arrow into a stag.

At the banquet (Nargothrond was all too happy to throw banquets, and had done so with gusto for Maglor’s arrival), Finrod had been much the same. Maglor tried not to look. It was easier during the hunts. Then he could remember that his cousin was known quietly as The Untouchable, that Maglor himself was...

No, that was not something he did.

Not anymore.

(The last kiss he’d ever had haunted him. He pretended it did not. His brother’s lips against his, gentle and lingering, only one hand left to thread through his hair, as he’d whispered, “We don’t have to, Káno. Never again.” His hand had come up to grip at Maedhros’s robes, but Maedhros had turned, limping back to his tent on the shores of Lake Mithrim, and his hand closed on cold empty air.)

The Men were interesting, and easier to focus on. Maglor was charmed, as young Balan, who was apparently a captain of some kind, kept asking for more songs, in the halting, lilting burr he spoke Sindarin with. His huge dark eyes glittered in the crystal light hung all about the Grand Caverns, and he hung on every word, until the other Men and Elves began filtering out to find their beds.

“Perhaps,” Finrod suggested kindly, “we could retire to my private chambers? I believe...” He exchanged a few phrases with Balan in the tongue the Men spoke, and received an eager reply in the same language, and a vigorous bob of the man’s head. Finrod’s smile widened, and he leaned close, his fingertips brushing over Maglor’s forearm. “He says,” he whispered and Maglor tried not to shiver at the brush of warm breath across his ear, “he would like to hear you sing in Quenya, if you don’t mind it. A song of the time before the Darkening. I told him how famous you were, back home.”

“That was so long ago,” Maglor demurred, but Finrod only laughed, and took him by the arm.

The Man Balan’s head only came up to Maglor’s shoulder. He amused himself, remembering how small he had looked next to Maedhros, when they had first met Finrod’s new pet project in the wilds of the Blue Mountains.

“My Lord,” Balan asked, trotting to keep up with his strides, which he had to keep reminding himself he did not need to hurry, no one vastly taller than he was was hurrying him along. “Your King Nóm has taught of me the story of your Nolodantë. Did you write this, truly?”

“I...well, yes,” Maglor allowed, and caught sight of Finrod on his arm, smiling to himself. “It took a great deal of time and work, but--“

“Ah, you have done so many deeds already that are the work of legend!”

“We do not sing in joy of that crossing,” Maglor said gently. “Nor of the deeds that surrounded it.”

“But you fought fiercely, yes?”

“...Yes...though whether that was for good or--“

“Among my people, you would be counted a great chief,” Balan insisted, and beamed up at him. “Had I daughters, I would--“

Finrod said something in that strange tongue, and they conversed for a moment, before Finrod met Maglor’s curious glance with a cheery smile. “Men have strange customs when it comes to their daughters,” he said, and the guards to his chambers waved him through, allowing the three of them passage to the inner sanctum.

The crystals lighted up as they walked through. They flared bright with silver light, and Maglor’s breath caught.

“I know,” Finrod said softly, his expression faraway. “During the day, they glow golden. I want to have them all through Nargothrond eventually, but for now, I will take my small privilege as king in this way.”

“I can see why. It reminds me of nothing so much as Telperion’s light.”

“And I had forgotten how lovely your hair looked in that silver glow.”

Maglor’s eyes widened. He cast a sudden look to the side, but Finrod was talking to Balan again. Then the two of them were on either side of him, tugging him down to the large cushions around Finrod’s low table, near the hearth.

“Wine, cousin?” Finrod offered, and poured him a goblet before he answered. “For that sweet voice of yours. Sing the Nyárë Cuiviénen, show us why you’re called Macalaurë.”

“I...it’s a long lay,” Maglor protested, laughing.

“Oh, please, my lord?” Balan’s eyes were shining again, and he was...oh, he was grabbing Maglor’s hand, and his hands were so rough and warm.

Maglor swallowed hard, and summoned his performing skills, clearing his throat. “You two are most insistent. Fine, fine--if Ingoldo will accompany me on the harp.”

“But I am so comfortable,” Finrod exclaimed, and laughed, leaning close to Maglor’s side, his warmth a balm to the cold nights in the caves. “Just sing, Laurë. This is hardly a great hall. You are among friends.”

He was, wasn’t he? Maglor sighed, deliberately long-suffering. “I am always put-upon by your mischief,” he informed his cousin, who looked far more like the shining youth of their childhood in Telperion’s light than he did the King of Nargothrond, all of a sudden.

He sang.

The lights did not dim, as the night spun through the crystal light. Time seemed odd and unreal in the caves, with no breeze and no birdsong. At some point, Finrod finished his goblet, and lay a head on his shoulder. On his other side, Balan sat rapt, his breath swift as he listened to the words he would have no way of understanding.

Finally, he reached the end of the song. He closed his eyes for the last verse, and half-expected his audience to be asleep by the end. But Balan was still gazing in near-adoration, and Finrod’s long-lashed eyes were lidded, but open, fixed on his face.

A soft thrum of heat crept up the back of Maglor’s neck. _Stop it_ , he ordered himself, but it was not as effective as it usually was, whenever something (someone) looked at him for a moment too long, and he wondered whether he would ever feel his blood pulse fast under someone else’s touch again.

“Lord,” Balan breathed. “That was magnificent.”

“I told you he was the best,” Finrod murmured, and reached a hand up, stroking slowly through a lock of Maglor’s hair, winding it around his fingers. “The sweetest voice I’ve ever heard.”

“Ingoldo...” Why did his cousin have to be so sweetly intent, but never quite the way he wanted?

Balan said something in his tongue, and Finrod looked up at Maglor, his eyes shining suddenly dark. “I don’t know,” he answered in Sindarin. “Truly, I’ve never known my lovely cousin here to take a lover, male or female.”

Maglor’s heart thudded. “What are you telling him, fair traitor?” he asked, trying to keep his voice light and teasing.

“Is it betrayal to speak truth? They call me _Nóm,_ you know. How should I lie? Balan only wished to know if the Great Golden Voice was partial to _nér_ or _nís_.” Finrod sat up, taller than he even seated, but did not move back, so that Maglor was forced to look up into his face. “And you heard my response.”

“You...” Maglor fumbled for words. For a strange, heady second, he remembered the last time he had been in front of the hearth between two figures--

\--His brother’s hands in his hair, his father’s hands on his hips, the bright-hot edge of pain, the spark of triumph at knowing this was one of the days he had been _helpful_ , he had made it better with his presence, because Maitimo was perfect but not silver-tongued like he was, and their father had been so deranged, their last night in Formenos--

Finrod’s fingers were gentle, stroking over his cheek. “Have I said something amiss?” he asked, all earnest gentleness. “We would ask nothing of you, Laurë, that you do not wish to share.”

The words did not quite make sense. Share? What was there to share?

“Lord Maglor,” Balan said, and there was a glint of something almost worshipful in his eyes as he took Maglor’s hand between his own again, squeezing gently. “Your mouth is very great.”

“His voice,” Finrod corrected gently. “You mean to compliment his voice. You’ve not had his mouth.” _Yet_ , the tone seemed to imply, at least to Maglor, who tried not to shiver at the implication.

Balan frowned. “But, to give voice, that is one’s tongue, yes?”

“Ah, somewhat. That’s a synecdoche in Sindarin, at least. You remember, when a part stands for the whole? Or perhaps metonymy, where one thing stands for another--yes, Sindarin does not have the same metaphor as Quenya, I sometimes get the two confused. For example,” he added, when Maglor would have made to pull back from the table, leaving him to their linguistical debate, “if I said I had given my word to my cousin, that would mean a promise. But if I said I would give my mouth to my cousin...”

Maglor caught his eyes. He expected some mockery there, and searched for it, but only found gentle, teasing curiosity, as he ever had.

“Yes?” Balan asked, and he, too, was somehow closer, with Maglor between the two of them. “What would it mean? If I, too, gave my mouth to your fair cousin?”

“Ingoldo,” Maglor whispered, and Finrod’s hands threaded gently through his hair, making him shiver with sensation, so desired, so longed-for, after so long.

“I told you, my friend. Among the Eldar, there are certain customs. We wait, for my cousin to invite us. And our mouths.”

Maglor shot a look at him, then over at Balan, who looked to be on the verge of jumping to his feet at any moment, then back to Finrod. “You planned this?” It was meant to be an accusation, but emerged a breathless question.

Finrod shrugged, unapologetic. “My dear Balan has spoken of nothing else for weeks, since we heard you would visit. You made quite an impression on him, the first time you sang in the Blue Mountains.”

“And...the two of you...”

Balan and Finrod exchanged a look. A familiar emotion curled around Maglor. He had seen affection so deep from the outside before, between Maedhros and Fingon. He knew well what it felt like, to be unable to touch that glass-encased flame, to feel just the barest hint of warmth from it, though he could not begrudge it to those within the light.

And then Balan and Finrod both turned to him, and he felt himself burn.

“You will tell me true, cousin,” Finrod said, and stripped off his outer robes as if that were a normal thing for the King of Nargothrond to do, seated around his table with his cousin and a human. His body was not unmarked by battle--none of them were, any more--but it was beautiful, toned and slender and lithe. “Why does no one think me honest when I tell them they are fair, and they are wondrous, and I would lie with them happily? Men are far quicker to understand, in this way.”

“Ing--“

“Lord?” Balan was in front of him suddenly, his hands hovering almost nervously at the laces of one of Maglor’s boots. “May I? Please?”

Maglor swallowed. His cock twitched at the sight of the Man, again when Finrod trailed fingers through his hair again. “What if...I do not wish to?” he asked, his voice dry.

The fingers paused. Balan sat back, looking disappointed, but resigned. “Then,” Finrod said with a shrug, “I will bid you a fond good evening, my friend, and see you back safely to your rooms. You are a guest, both in my realm and my chambers. Surely you don’t suppose I would impose?”

He said it as though no one would ever think to do such a thing.

As though no one had ever raped Maglor Fëanorian over a desk, held him down and kicked his legs open.

Balan stood, and offered him a broad, warm hand. “Shall we make walk to your quarters, Lord?” he asked, mastering his disappointment with immediate grace. “The song was very beautiful. I am very...” He turned to Finrod, frowning. “I am very thanking? That is wrong.”

“Thankful,” Finrod supplied. “Or grateful.” He stood as well, and moved to put his robes back on.

“Wait.”

Both turned to face him, Finrod with a raised eyebrow, Balan with idle curiosity. Maglor sucked in a breath, then held out his hands, one to each. “If I may leave...may I also stay?”

He looked at Finrod, but it was Balan who dropped to one knee first, his dark eyes too wise for his years, and leaned in close, his lips slightly parted.

It took Maglor a moment to realize what was offered, and another to gather his courage to seize it.

The prickle of a beard against his face was a strange one, but welcome. It was so new, the sensation so odd and foreign, that Maglor was unable to think of anything but the warm, eager mouth on his. They had an audience, but this was no performance; Balan kissed him as if eager for the taste of his tongue, as if he were thinking of nothing but the pleasure that could be found between two people, and the thought was a heady one. It was strangely intimate, and intimately strange all at once, to feel a Man’s round features against his own angular ones, and Maglor drank in the feeling, surrendering himself with a soft, hungry gasp.

“You are so beautiful,” Finrod whispered, and he sounded overcome. Maglor broke the kiss, and was surprised to see tears glittering in his fair cousin’s eyes, and could not help himself but to laugh.

“You are the conductor of this orchestra, are you not?” he asked, a smile teasing around the corners of his lips, as Balan bent to take off his boots at last. “Will you not also lend your melody to the song?”

Finrod took a swallow of wine, then bent, pausing a hairsbreadth away from Maglor’s face, his eyes twinkling in the silver light. “This,” he confided, “is my favorite part. Just before the first touch. What do you imagine I will taste like, cousin?”

Maglor’s heart beat fast against his ribs. He reached a hand up, hesitant, but wanting, and rested it against a lean shoulder, feeling Finrod’s blood pulse under the skin in turn. “I imagine you’ll have more of an idea than I,” he said, breath catching.

“You do?” The tip of Finrod’s tongue flicked out against his upper lip, just for a moment. “You think I have such practice in kissing my cousins?”

“ _Do_ you?”

“Well,” Finrod allowed, rather mischievously, “not _all_ of them.”

Then he bent, and their lips met.

Maglor nearly laughed. The idea that he could mistake Finrod for anyone else, even with his eyes closed, seemed almost ludicrous. Who else in his experience would give him such soft, teasing brushes of his lips, would taste of wine and song and sunlight, would feel so light in his hands? He wondered, for the first time, what Finrod would taste on him, and wanted very much for it to be pleasing.

Then a warm, broad hand slid under his chin, and turned him to the side. The scrape of beard was enough, even before Maglor’s eyes fluttered open, to tell him that Balan had wearied of waiting. Cool air against his feet told him he had missed his boots being removed, somehow, and then Finrod’s hands were on his robes, and he was squirming, helping them undress him, until he lay unclothed upon the cushions beneath them.

“So lovely,” Finrod was murmuring, pressing soft kisses to his neck, sounding as if he were near overwhelmed. “Long have I dreamed of this.”

 _Why?_ Maglor nearly asked. He was not terribly convenient for Finrod, not so lovely as Maedhros or Celegorm. But Balan did not let him speak, tasting his mouth with abandon, though his hand was neither demanding nor rough on Maglor’s chin. His other hand moved to touch his hair--reverently, carefully, and Maglor noted in an almost detached way that the callouses and small rough patches on his hands caught against the braids and loose strands, as Elven fingers would not.

“What do you like?” Finrod was asking, as Maglor tried to crawl out of the honey-sweet state that Balan’s mind was reducing him to. “You have had a lover before, yes? A _nér_? If not, it is no matter, we do not mind being an introduction.”

“I--“ Valar, how to answer that? He fumbled for a moment with the words, as the sudden terror took him that he might say the wrong thing, they might discover what he had kept silent on purpose for centuries.

Finrod’s expression didn’t change, but Balan’s flickered with something Maglor did not recognize, and he nodded. “We will help,” he said simply, and took Maglor’s hand between both of his own, bringing it to his mouth to kiss it. “Do you know if there is a... _Nóm_ , what is the word for _sûrgruth?_ ”

“Position.” Finrod’s gaze softened, and he reached out a hand, brushing a wild dark curl behind Balan’s ear. “Aye, cousin, is there a position or act you must try, or desire strongly, or abhor?”

A choice, free for him to make. The power was almost too unfamiliar, but Maglor grabbed at it anyway, as he let his hand come up, threading through Balan’s hair. It was coarser than Elven hair, even Noldorin hair, less like Vanyarin hair than it was like a wolf’s fur, almost. Still it slid through his fingers, clean and brushed, and the way Balan’s eyes lidded made it clear he liked the feeling as much as an Elf would, if not more.

“If you have no opinions,” Finrod said gently, “or you are overwhelmed, we can perhaps amuse ourselves, and you insert yourself in a way that seems pleasing to you?”

Balan closed his eyes, leaning into Maglor’s touch against his scalp. “Your hands are strong,” he murmured, and ran his own down Maglor’s chest and belly, the rough skin scraping there, too, making Maglor intake a swift breath. “But so soft. Would you touch me?”

“It is so different from one of our forms,” Finrod murmured, his tone eager. “You will like it, Macalaurë. I know you of old, you are not so...closed-minded as some of our kin.”

Was he open-minded? Maglor wasn’t certain that particularly applied to him, but he _did_ find Balan pleasing, so perhaps he was. He nodded, and found his voice. “Show me. Ingoldo--would you show me what he looks like, and how to touch him?”

He heard twin inhalations, one from either side of him. Then, as if that were a starting flare, Finrod and Balan were suddenly tangled together, kissing hungrily, as though they had just endured a long separation and found their way to a reunion. Robes and stockings and leggings hit the floor, and Maglor marveled at the sight of the bodies, one long and fair and golden, the other stocky and broad and--

“His hair,” he breathed, taken aback despite having known on some instinctual level that Men were more... _furred_ than the Eldar were. “It’s everywhere.”

Finrod wrapped himself around Balan from behind, kissing his round ears, running his fingernails through the short curly hairs on the Man’s chest. He had to bend quite a bit to reach his targets, but the position did not seem to discomfit him, nor Balan, if Balan’s soft moans were any indication.

Maglor watched, fascinated, as his cousin’s clever fingers trailed over the man’s chest, his thumbs rubbing at broad dusky nipples, down over the hard muscled planes of his abdomen. Men put on muscle so differently, he noticed, and drank in the sight.

Then Finrod’s hand drifted lower, and Maglor could not take his eyes away. There was hair there, too, far more than he was used to, and...

“Isn’t it beautiful?” Finrod murmured, and from the little hitching, urgent way he was moving, Maglor thought he must be hard, and rubbing himself against Balan’s thigh from behind. His own cock jumped and filled at the thought, and he swallowed hard.

“Yes,” he said, his voice a low husk of its usual self. Finrod’s long fingers wrapped around a thick, veiny cock with a wide head, flushed so dark it was nearly purple at the tip. He squeezed and stroked, and a pearly bead of fluid formed at the head as Balan’s chest heaved, his breathing coming rapidly.

Maglor bent forward before he knew what he was doing, and closed a hand over Finrod’s, stilling it on Balan’s cock. He hesitated, but before he could find the words, Balan was nodding eagerly. “Please,” he groaned, face flushed a brilliantly dark red, and his hips twitched forward. “Anything, anything you desire. To be between such two...”

“To have such a one between us,” Finrod murmured, and laughed, meeting Maglor’s eyes. “ _Haurandil_ , I call him.”

“That,” Maglor answered in Quenya, “is more true of you than of him, if what I feel is any indication of your desires.”

Finrod’s eyes danced, and he licked up the curve of Balan’s ear, making the Man shiver in his hold. “See, or taste, for yourself, cousin.”

Something leapt inside Maglor’s chest, and he nodded, and bent his head, keeping his eyes on Balan as he opened his mouth, letting his tongue drag over the head of Balan’s cock.

It was not _so_ different from one of their own. The taste, though--that was far stronger, and he nearly flinched at just that, before he mastered himself. The drop he tasted was sticky and musky and bitter, far more so than he had once been used to, and he pulled back, wide-eyed. “It is...”

“Different, aye.” Finrod’s eyes seemed almost to glow, reflecting the silver light. “What else would you like to taste?”

Balan’s hands came up, and Maglor hoped he did not flinch at the movement. He did not _think_ he did. “What would the Great Golden Voice have of me?” he asked, voice so low Maglor’s ears belied him for a moment, and he thought it was hardly a voice of a Man at all, but one of the creatures of Oromë in the hills.

The possibilities were overwhelming, and Maglor shook his head, drawing back a moment. “Tell me instead,” he urged. “What would you think of, cousin, when you spoke to him of inviting me to Nargothrond?”

“Primarily of the two of you taking me, one after the other after the other, until my eyes no longer focus,” Finrod said, with apparently no shame whatsoever. He wrapped a long leg around Balan’s hips, and both of them let out a breathy, eager sound in two octaves.

“That,” Balan informed his King, looking up and tugging on a lock of golden hair, “is because you are greedy, Nóm.”

“So I have often been told. What of you, my dear Balan?”

Balan’s eyes tracked back to Maglor’s, and held them. He watched the Man slowly shiver in Finrod’s hold, his skin tightening involuntarily as their eyes met. “I would say again. I would give him my mouth.”

“Is that all?”

“It is a beginning, maybe.”

“Yes,” Maglor blurted. “Yes, I...please.” He could not stop himself from staring at at Balan’s lips, which had felt so plush and thick and warm against his own, and imagining--

And then there was no need for imagining, because Balan was disentangling himself from Finrod, and pressing Maglor down to his back with careful touches, and kissing his chest, his belly, the curve of his hip, the juncture of his thigh, until he closed his mouth around Maglor’s cock.

Finrod’s hands were in his hair, and Maglor clung to his arms, his eyes closed at the burst of pleasure that threaded through him. Balan was _noisy_ , making low, sloppy, wet sounds around his length, and his tongue was stronger, rougher than Maglor had once been used to, in the time before the Trees died.

He squirmed helplessly, undone by the _sounds_ as much as the feeling, his hips twitching with the effort not to just buck upwards.

“So tense,” Finrod teased gently, and nuzzled against his neck, going after his ears the way he’d gone after Balan’s, nibbling and kissing and sucking on them until Maglor was panting aloud. “Relax. Let yourself feel. We don’t mind.”

Balan pulled off for a moment, laving the head with his tongue, to look up through dark lashes. “Really, Lord,” he said, his voice even lower than before. “I am of hardy stock. I would want...” He shook his head, as if words were simply too difficult, and looked up at Finrod, saying something in his language before he swallowed Maglor’s cock again.

Maglor arched, crying out at the sudden wet heat, and Finrod was stroking his hair, kissing him sweetly, surrounding him with gentle bliss. “What,” Maglor panted against Finrod’s lips, his own hands coming up at last, one of them resting on Balan’s coarse hair, the other dragging down Finrod’s back, “did he say?”

Finrod smiled against his mouth. “That you are more polite than I am,” he said wickedly. “Does his mouth not undo you, cousin? Could you not spend yourself there over and over, letting the world fade about you?”

Maglor nodded, his eyes lidding as pleasure washed through him in hot, sizzling waves. The occasional brush of Balan’s beard against his inner thighs made him tremble, his toes curling with each bob of Balan’s head, as the Man seemed determined to swallow him to the root with each gulp.

“Please,” he babbled, and there was an odd, nervous note in his voice, even as he clung to Finrod and Balan, feeling his skin grow too-tight, his balls draw up, his cock twitching down Balan’s throat. “Please, I--I want to, I need to, please--“

Finrod blinked at him, nonplussed. “Of course,” he said, as though Maglor had asked for nothing more than permission to keep breathing.

 _So that isn’t usual_ , Maglor thought vaguely, and for a moment, the shame and confusion stole over him, and he felt himself retreating.

Balan’s hand closed around the hand on his head, and squeezed. Maglor looked down, startled, and saw the Man lower himself slowly down, then draw entirely up, his lips stretched about his length, tongue dragging hungrily up the underside of the shaft. He drew off, and rested the head of Maglor’s cock against his lower lip, rasping, “Lord, let me taste you.”

Then he dove down again, and Maglor’s body would not be denied any longer. He squeezed his eyes shut, his fingers curling in Balan’s hair as he spent himself, shaking with the intensity of it after...Valar, after more than three centuries.

Balan swallowed his release with apparent ease, and pulled off only slowly, when Maglor’s cock started to soften. He gave it a final lick, then pressed a kiss to the tip, before giving Maglor a smile. “Thankful,” he said, then caught himself, and shook his head. “Thank--“

Maglor moved fast, pressing two fingers to Balan’s lips. He could not hear it, could not bear to be thanked for that. Whatever was in his face spoke volumes, apparently, because Balan fell silent, and pressed a kiss to his fingers instead, leaving a spot of slick moisture on his fingertips.

Then Balan squeezed his hand, and turned to Finrod, and the heat was back in his gaze. “Nóm is going to act sad soon, if I do not touch him.”

Maglor managed a weary grin. “Pout,” he said seriously. “My cousin will soon pout, if we do not touch him.”

“Quite correct,” Finrod announced. He was beautiful in the nude, and reclined as if he was well aware of the fact, his head propped up on one hand as the other very deliberately unbound one of his braids. “As is my right. It is my chambers, after all, and I should be adored.”

“As well you should,” Maglor agreed, and turned to him. A vague, reckless feeling took hold of him. No one here would hurt him. No one was watching to see if he misstepped. No one here was waiting to judge his behavior, or would punish someone else if he made a mistake. He could leave, or he could do what he wished.

It made him wild.

“I want to touch you,” he said, and did, filling his hands with Finrod’s body. He was very slight for a Noldor, but perhaps that was the Telerin blood. It did not make him any less eager for touch, from the way he writhed under Maglor’s hands, biting his lip as they dragged over his chest, his arms, his hair.

“Ai, cousin,” he breathed, splaying out beneath Maglor, his eyes lidded and inviting. “You may touch, and you may have anything you like. Is it not so, Balan?”

“It is so.”

Balan took Finrod’s face between his hands for a moment, and the two kissed until both were breathless, clinging to each other with want. The sight inflamed Maglor, and he dropped his hands boldly, cupping and fondling Finrod’s cock, drinking in the sound of sudden, startled pleasure he let out against Balan’s mouth.

Finrod broke the kiss, his mouth and chin reddened from the scrape of Balan’s beard. He looked already thoroughly debauched, chest rising and falling rapidly, legs shamelessly parted, hair falling loose about his shoulders. “What will you have, my cousin, my guest?”

“You.” Maglor half expected Finrod to deny him, but he did not, his eyes widening in desire. “And--Balan. Both.”

One fair eyebrow rose. “Please be more specific.”

Maglor felt his mouth go dry, but he nodded. “I want to, to have you,” he said, and when Finrod only deliberately raised that eyebrow farther, blushed and added, “Like this. On your back. With me inside of you.”

Finrod’s lips parted, and his cock visibly twitched against his stomach. He lay back against the cushions, and reached down, one hand on his own inner thigh, displaying himself in a manner Maglor thought was almost unbelievably lewd. “With great pleasure, I would accept this. And Balan?”

 _And Balan indeed_ , Maglor thought, locking eyes with the Man once again. “Inside me,” he blurted, and saw the two of them nod.

“If that is your wish,” Balan said, and leaned in to kiss his ear, then whisper, “I need not, if the thought brings fear.”

Maglor swallowed.

Balan knew.

Somehow, he knew. But he was not stopping, not pulling away, simply...offering.

He called up a smile, and shook his head. “It is my wish,” he confirmed, and saw Balan nod in understanding.

Finrod reached for him, and Maglor took his mouth once more. He fancied he could feel the heat of Balan’s mouth lingering there, and was hungry for it. But there was Finrod, too, and Maglor could not deny that he had long thought his cousin fair even by the measure of the Eldar, and dear beyond the measure of most of his kin.

Finrod’s hands moved quickly, wickedly, and Maglor felt his own hair starting to tumble unbraided around them, and Finrod’s hands dragging through the loose strands. Back in Valinor such an act would have been scandalously intimate; in Beleriand, Maglor had seen many go with unbound hair, but...

Finrod caught his eyes, and grinned. “I mean it in the ways of old,” he said, as if Maglor had spoken with ósanwë. “I thought it might be the fastest way to have what I desire from you. Or will you make me beg?”

“No.” Maglor’s voice came out too quickly, he thought, but Finrod’s expression did not change, so perhaps he was over-reacting. Balan’s hands soothed up and down his sides, and then there was the warmth and weight of him back there, and the shocking hardness of his thick cock.

The body hair was a startling, grounding feeling, and Maglor leaned back into it, as Finrod’s soft hand worked slowly on his cock, teasing him back to full hardness. “Ah, have you any...” A thought occurred to him, and he turned to look at Balan over his shoulder, curious. “Do men perhaps have no need for oil, in such matters?”

Finrod’s laugh was a golden chime in the cavern, and Balan’s cheeks went ruddy. “I _am_...ah, Nóm, how would I say...”

He said something, and Finrod’s eyes flashed. He spread his thighs wide, and reached for Maglor, who covered his body, unwilling to resist. “He says,” Finrod breathed, “that he is dripping at the thought of being inside of you.” Then he reached down to grip Maglor’s cock, dragging it to press against his hole--stretched and slick, _Valar_ , Finrod really had planned this. Or maybe he had just planned to go to bed with Balan--

“He had me before the banquet,” Finrod said bluntly. “We were _beautiful_ , cousin. I watched us in that mirror, over there, as he pinned me to the wall and spent himself inside me.”

Maglor stopped breathing. He could see it all too well in his mind’s eye, and the thought was overpowering, until he was pushing forward, and _in_ \--

Finrod moaned, his head tossed back, and the sound was low and musical, and went directly to Maglor’s cock. He hardly needed the additional stimulation; Finrod was wet and slick and _tight_ around him as he squeezed down, licking his lips as Maglor tried to get his bearings, tried to think of _anything_ other than how delicious it felt to be buried inside of Finrod’s body.

He rutted forward, Finrod’s eager, encouraging words driving him to new heights, their desires meeting and melding, as their lips met with an ache of need. Finrod’s legs wrapped around his waist, pulling him in close, his hips rocking down, their bodies near crashing together with every slick, hungry motion.

Never had he thought to see Finrod like this, undone by pleasure, his fair hair tousled against a cushion, body tangled up against his own with wild desire. It was a sight Maglor thought he might cherish forever, if he were not careful.

The _want_ built inside him, and suddenly he could not stand waiting any longer. He looked back over his shoulder, and met Balan’s eyes. “Take me,” he said, and it did not sound like a plea to his own ears, but a command.

Balan’s fingers were slick, and opened him so skillfully Maglor nearly forgot it had been centuries since someone had touched him thus. Perhaps not every part of him below his neck had withered and died from disuse after all. He pushed back, keening at the feeling of being stretched, then forward into Finrod, who squeaked at the intrusion, his voice spiking high before he lowered it again on purpose, his cheeks flushed with embarrassment and hunger at the same time.

“He has--such nice fingers, doesn’t he?” he panted, and Maglor felt a smug sense of satisfaction that Finrod’s eyes were not quite focused.

He nodded, and added, “He does, but--it is something else I want.”

“Lord...I am not thin, here.”

Maglor groaned, his head thunking down onto Finrod’s chest. “Fuck me,” he finally managed, and felt Balan’s cock twitch against his thigh. “Need I prostrate myself? I know your size, and I want to feel it take me apart, before even I show signs of aging!”

“Perhaps it is not only my Balan who is _Haurandil_.”

Maglor bit his lip, making Finrod cry out, dragging his nails down Maglor’s back. “Unlike your Balan,” he said, rocking his hips in deep and deliberately, dragging shudders out of his cousin, “I know what the words mean.”

Then his mouth was falling open, and he was quaking, and sweat was beading on his hairline, because something impossibly thick was stretching him open. He went still, eyes crossing as Balan fucked into him, so hard and thick his insides started to cramp, and a dark spark of a pleasure he hadn’t experienced in far too long flared to life.

Everything fell away, but that sweet, burning ache of pleasure. He was still moving, he thought, but even his body felt distant. There was no fear, not with Balan petting him, but there was an odd sense of dislocation, of confusion, of surprise that he was allowed to enjoy this, let alone take more of it.

“Nóm, you see his face,” he heard Balan murmur, as if from a long way away. Hands were touching him, all over, but none of that quite mattered, somehow. “What does he look like?”

“He is drooling on my chest,” came Finrod’s amused voice. “I think my dear cousin is learning the joys of a human’s cock, intimately.”

“Is he still hard?”

“Oh,” Finrod murmured. “Yes. It feels glorious, nnh, if he is not worn out by this you must try it for yourself.”

There was a burst of that other language, a desperate slew of Mannish against Maglor’s back, as Balan started to thrust in hard. Maglor heard a sound that could have been a wail, and thought it was coming from him. The thrusts paused, just for a second--

And then he was back in his body, and everything was moving very fast. The grunts and pants and moans and slaps of skin against skin were all around him, and he was groaning, “Don’t stop, don’t stop, fuck me, fuck me hard, _fuck_ , you’re so big, ai, _aí_ \--“

They matched him, pace for pace, cry for cry, and Maglor lost track of who he was--not in his own mind, but because there were three of them, pressed so close any limb might have belonged to anyone, and someone was kissing him, and he was loving someone, and more than one voice sobbed in pleasure at the end.


	2. May I Clear Your Slate and Wipe Your Conscience

_“I’ll sleep between you and the door.”_

_Maitimo was taking care of him. His body was warm and lean, curled protectively around his little brother. Macalaurë was safe._

_As safe as he could be, when Maitimo could be taken away from him at any time. The door could always open. Their father could always come in and say, “Now, Nelyo. Or perhaps Káno--“_

_And Maitimo would go._

_But sometimes the door would not open. And Maitimo’s arms would be around him. And sometimes, Macalaurë would wake hard under his nightshirt, and hold himself still, sometimes for hours, in the arms of the brother he had so often stroked or sucked or been taken by, because they didn’t do that. Not when they didn’t have to._

_Even if Macalaurë wondered, whenever he did not stop himself, what it would feel like to feel a kiss unforced, that was just for him._

_But Maitimo deserved to sleep, untroubled, with no strange lusts upon him. So Macalaurë lay there, unmoving, until the feelings passed, and he was just a little brother again._

When Maglor woke, he was warm and safe, and in the arms of a Man. He came awake quickly, but lay still, the hot bulk of Balan almost a soporific. It had been so long--since before the Darkening--that he had felt someone’s arms around him properly, and he closed his eyes. He was stealing it, he knew. Balan was not his, and Finrod was not his, but he would steal the warmth and comfort this morning, like the brat he had often been accused of being.

“Lord,” Balan murmured against his shoulder, and Maglor sighed internally. It could not last, he supposed. “Good morning.”

The light in the cavern was golden, as promised. Someone had spread a thick coverlet over the two of them in the night, and Maglor exhaled slowly, deciding not to pretend that he was asleep. “Good morning, Balan.”

Balan did not release him. “Nóm has gone to an audience. We are alone, for now.”

“Oh.” Suddenly, Maglor felt slightly awkward. He did not know Balan terribly well--or rather, he had not known Balan long enough for how well he _did_ know him to be entirely appropriate. His face colored, and he pulled away. Balan let him, and he sat up, holding the coverlet up to his chest, an odd and delayed modesty. “If you have somewhere to be, I’ll not keep you for my sake.”

“Do _you_ have somewhere to be?”

Maglor considered, then shook his head. “Not until...well, no.” The Gap was in good hands, until he saw fit to return, in three month’s time.

“Then lay with me a moment. If you would.”

“Ah...all right.”

Slowly, Maglor lay back down, and let Balan rest a hand on his chest. “Your heart beats faster than Nóm’s,” Balan noted. “Are you afraid of me?”

“No.”

“Are you afraid?”

“I said--“

“Not of me.” Balan’s hand on his chest was warm, solid, grounding. “But I think sometimes, last night, you were not seeing me.”

A slow shiver of unease rippled up Maglor’s spine. He looked away, nervous, but Balan just stayed still, hand on his chest. Seconds ticked by, and finally, quietly, Maglor said, “Last night...you seemed...to understand.”

Slowly, Balan nodded. “This city of Nóm is...gentle. Before we came here, we were not a gentle people. I have seen men and women who...” He frowned, stuck on a word for a moment, then searched for an equivalent. “Who pull back, when touched. Who see shadows, even when they are safe. It is common.”

Maglor’s heart did a strange little flutter in his chest. “Common,” he echoed, and turned onto his side. As if this were a cue, Balan wrapped an arm around him, tugging Maglor’s face into his chest. “It is not common, among my people.”

Balan stroked Maglor’s back, gently, rough skin brushing against soft. “Have you ever made speaking of it?”

“No.” And Maglor found, suddenly, that his eyes were stinging. He buried his face in Balan’s chest, his breath coming faster. “I...was very young.”

“We have words, in my tongue, for those that do such things to children.”

“I was...not quite a child. But young. By the measure of my people, very...very young, still. It was not fair,” Maglor said suddenly, as if he were still that foolish child, who had stumbled upon something he should not have, and opened himself up to a world of horror. “That--why should it have brought such darkness to me? Why can I not...be free of it, even when he is dead now?”

“Scars last longer than wounds,” Balan said softly. “There is no shame, Lord, in being wounded in spirit.”

“Maglor.”

Balan blinked at him for a moment, then shook his head. “I will call you _Lúem_ , if you do not mind. In my tongue, it means...mm, there is no direct word. It is...” He shook his head, and huffed. “It is a good name,” he said crossly. “I will have Nóm translate later.”

Maglor smiled, and nodded, his hair brushing loose against Balan’s skin. It felt strangely erotic, to feel his hair unbound against someone’s skin, especially someone he hardly knew. “I do not mind. You are...very kind.”

“Tell me, if you like.”

Maglor froze. He swallowed hard, hearing his pulse pounding in his ears, first distantly, then up close. “Why?” he asked faintly.

“Sometimes...it is a poison thorn. The poison may hurt even if the thorn is gone, but...do not leave the thorn. It must be drawn. Even if the drawing hurts.”

Maglor breathed shallowly, trying not to feel faint. “It was so long ago, though.” _How_ could he even speak of it? Where could he start? What could he say, that would not bring trouble to his brothers?

“Was it someone you trusted?” Balan asked.

Strong hands on his shoulders. A familiar voice in his ear, sounding unfamiliar. Cold hands pulling up his tunic. _You wouldn’t want anyone to hear about this, would you?_ His smile, that had to change, because he couldn’t remember how the old one used to look, and people were starting to notice.

His father had been violent in his urges, and hurt him, though not as much as he hurt Maitimo. But he had spoken of that to Maitimo, and thought the thorn was perhaps removed, even if the poison lingered. But...

“My grandfather,” he said, his voice very quiet, as if he could be heard even now. “You mustn’t tell Finrod. It is his grandfather, too.”

“I will tell no one what you speak,” Balan assured him. His hands were gentle in Maglor’s hair, and Maglor felt himself relaxing, bit by bit.

“He...we were raised nearly worshipping him,” he said quietly, letting his eyes close, his cheek pressed to Balan’s chest. “It was not...” He huffed out a breath. He could not hold back now, if he was ever going to speak. “It had happened before. With...someone else. No, I will not speak of that, but--I knew what it was. I went to see him, I...I wanted his help.”

Maitimo, waking from terrors, even before the Darkening. Findekáno, panic and anger rising in his face, demanding to know why he couldn’t see Maitimo, nearly coming to blows with Fëanor. And finally, Ñolofinwë, pulling him aside after a concert, asking with too-knowing eyes, _“Has your father ever hurt you, Kanafinwë?”_

He had lied, of course.

But his lies were not so good as they once were. And his uncle had seemed to see past his prevarications, and had firmed his jaw, and had seemed on the verge of doing something that he could not see ending well.

“I went to my grandfather’s house,” he said hollowly. “To ask him to intercede in...in a fight, between my father and uncle. He had always been kind to me. He was our High King, when I was young, though he gave it up, to follow my father into exile. And...”

The coverlet was warm and heavy. It was the only thing keeping out the cold of the outskirts of Formenos, and his grandfather’s hands. “He was not...it wasn’t what I expected. He...”

Maglor shook his head. “It is hard to explain. I didn’t know, at first. It...My grandfather was not well. He...he dreamed of my grandmother, who had died.” The words would not hold the same horror for Balan that they would for a Noldor, but perhaps that was for the better. Even most of the Noldor could not understand what it was, to have that in the family.

“He dreamed?”

“Have you ever seen one of us dream, while awake? With our eyes open?”

Slowly, Balan nodded. “I have seen Nóm that way.”

“I did not know he was dreaming. I let myself in, and...”

Cold hands. Shivering, but was it him, or was it Finwë? What could he even say? _“Grandfather, wake up, please--it’s Macalaurë, don’t you know me?”_

Cool dry lips against his neck.

_“My sweet girl. Spread your legs for me, you’re always so wet, naughty thing.”_

Sharp teeth on his neck. Strong hands on his thighs. Too dry, too tight.

“He...did not know me. I...” It took a long moment for Maglor to master himself again. He was trembling, and Balan’s arms were strong, but what made him tremble was long dead, slaughtered by Morgoth on the steps of the very house where--

Where Finwë had blinked, and seen him, and called him _Curufinwë,_ so perhaps he was not awake after all, and had told him--

_“Haven’t I told you not to come close, when I am like this? You know how dangerous it can be, don’t you?”_

And had brushed the hair back from his neck, his fingertips lingering over the bite he had left, and his eyes had seemed so faraway.

“I tried to talk to him, after he...I don’t know if he ever knew, but that...it was worse? It could have been anyone. I was just...convenient. It--“ His voice hitched, and his knees came up, until he was curled into a small ball. “It could have been anyone. It didn’t even matter. It--I didn’t even matter. What he did, it didn’t...and he never spoke of it, and...”

And he had never gone to see his grandfather alone again. One more place that wasn’t safe. One more thing he could never speak of. One more person who was supposed to keep him safe, who had hurt him so badly he could not walk properly for days.

One more secret.

“Touch me,” he said suddenly, and Balan was. Everything was warm, the roughness of his hands a grounding, rasping touch that kept him in the present. “Balan...”

Balan tilted his chin up, and Maglor leaned up, kissing him hard. For a moment, they were locked together, Maglor clinging harder than he intended, Balan meeting him grip for grip with apparent ease.

The frightening tingling sensation rippled through him, then slowly faded. He inhaled through his nose, then slowly relaxed, winding his arms around Balan’s neck. “Thank you,” he said softly. “If all Men are as wise as you in so few years, we are blessed by the appearance of the Younger Children indeed.”

“Wise, Lúem?” Balan smiled. “All I have done is listen.”

“Listen, and see, where no one else ever has,” Maglor said softly.

For what felt like hours, he lay curled up against Balan’s broad chest, hearing his breathing. The memory was still too horrible to properly recall, still sent revulsion and rage and terror through him. Perhaps he had removed the thorn, or perhaps he had not. Either way, the poison lingered.

But it would not kill him, he thought. Not today. Not while he was quite so safe.

Finally, Balan stroked his hair, and left the warmth of the coverlet to attend to nature’s call, and Maglor sighed, and levered himself up to dress. Any longer, and he would start to forget that it was a borrowed warmth, that he belonged in The Gap.

The door to the caverns opened as Balan returned, and Maglor was seated at the table, braiding his hair. Finrod smiled, and in the golden light of the crystals, he looked radiant indeed. “Good morrow, cousin,” he said, as if they had spotted each other bathing in the pools outside of Tirion, and not in a king’s chambers deep in a cave city. “Will you take luncheon with us, or shall I tell the cooks to send something in for you?”

“I think you must scandalize them quite enough without doing that,” Maglor teased, setting his braids to rights. “Yes, I will luncheon with you. And then, perhaps, I may see your crafters, as promised? For my poor broken harp, which you swore they would be able to mend.”

“I swore and truly, it shall be so,” Finrod promised. “I only rely upon the best crafters to mend my instruments, and they will treat yours as if she were mine.”

“I am glad, to have such a cousin.”

“And I am glad your harp broke,” Finrod said, suddenly frank. “For because of this, we were able to share last night.”

Maglor’s blood quickened at the thought. “...I am glad, also,” he said, slightly more softly, though he couldn’t keep a small smile from his face.

“Then let us go to luncheon, and to fix your harp.”

“Later,” Balan interjected, straightening his own clothing, “will you sing again?”

Maglor nodded. “But I will insist that Ingoldo actually accompany me this time.”

“Then I will insist you choose a song that is not a lament,” Finrod declared. “Surely, there is beauty and peace to be found, even here?”

Maglor looked about the cavern, and caught Balan’s gentle eyes, and Finrod’s sparkling ones. “Perhaps especially here.”

Balan said something in his tongue, and Finrod considered. “Ah... _courage_ , I think is the closest,” he mused. “We do not have the word you mean.”

“What word?” Maglor asked, curious.

“ _Lúem_. It is a word in Balan’s language, that means...oh, I would translate it as _the bravery of endurance_ , or something like that. Oh, now it’s going to bother me,” he muttered, now somewhat cross. “Perhaps it will have to be a poem.”

Color crept into Maglor’s cheeks, and he caught Balan’s eye. “I should like to hear that poem, I think. Perhaps I’ll set it to song.”

“We will collaborate,” Finrod said, and smiled. “And...should you wish to collaborate further, Laurë, you will find my chambers open to you, any night of your stay here.”

Maglor met his gaze. “I can think,” he said slowly, “of a few songs we have not yet sung together.”

**Author's Note:**

> 1\. Aw shit I guess this is a series now
> 
> 2\. [Requests here](https://hrunting-license.tumblr.com/)
> 
> 3\. _Hauarandil_ translates literally to "lover of the large" in Quenya, what an enterprising young monsterfucker Balan is, good for him


End file.
